The Writer's Life

I just published a book on writing...I had to rewrite it five times before my editor accepted it.

The moral is:  writing always involves rewriting.

Now I've sent off a book on ways of analyzing objects and artifacts--material culture

and am waiting to see how many times I have to rewrite it.

One problem I face...which all writers face...is that sometimes you lose editors...who

move to other jobs, leave publishing, whatever.  When you "lose" an editor, you've

lost someone who suggests new books, who helps you get them through the editorial

committee at publishers, etc.  In addition, I've "lost" several publishers...who either

were absorbed by bigger publishers or went out of business.  So now, despite a rather

long list of books, it seems harder to get stuff published than it was when I was just

beginning.

I'm retired and don't have to publish to avoid "perishing" but I still like to write,

so it isn't easy.  I'm also used to being rejected by editors...par for the course.  The

important thing is not to dwell on the rejection but figure out someone to send the

article or book to and face the prospect of being rejected again.

Check List for Analyzing Print Advertisements

“The tendency to interpret everything in an artistic text as meaningful is so great that we rightfully consider nothing accidental in a work of art” (1977:17).

Yuri Lotman in The Structure of the Artistic Text.

1. How would you describe the design of the advertisement? Do we find axial balance or an asymmetrical relationship among the elements in the advertisement?

2. How much copy is there relative to the amount of pictorial matter? Is this relationship significant in any respect?

3. Is there a great deal of blank (white) space in the advertisement or is it full of graphic and textual material?

4. What angle is the photograph shot at? Do we look up at the people in the advertisement? Do we look down at them from a height? Or do we look at them from a shoulder-level position? What significance

does the angle of the shot have?

5. How is the photograph lit? Is there a great deal of light or is there a little light and very dark shadows (chiaroscuro lighting)? What is the mood found in the advertisement?

6. If the photograph is in color, what colors dominate? What significance do these colors have?

7. How would you describe the two figures in the advertisement? Consider such matters as facial expression, hair color, hair length, hair styling, fashions (clothes, shoes, eyeglasses design and jewelry), various props (a cane, an umbrella), body shape, body language, age, gender, race, ethnicity, signs of occupation, signs of educational level, relationships suggested between the male and female, objects in the background, and so on.

8. What is happening in the advertisement? What does the “action” in the photo suggest? Assume that we are seeing one moment in an ongoing narrative. What is this narrative and what does it reveal about the two figures?

9. Are there any signs or symbols in the photograph? If so, what role do they play?

10. In the textual material, how is language used? What arguments are made or implied about the people in the photograph and about the product being advertised? That is, what rhetorical devices are used to attract readers

and stimulate desire in them for the product or service? Does the advertisement

use associations or analogies or something else to make its point?

11. What typefaces are used in the textual parts of the advertisement? What importance do the various typefaces have? (Why these typefaces and not other ones?)

12. What are the basic “themes” in the advertisement? How do these themes relate to the story implied by the advertisement?

13. What product or service is being advertised? Who is the target audience for this product or service? What role does this product or service play in American culture and society…or any other culture and society?

14. What values and beliefs are reflected in the advertisement? Sexual jealousy? Patriotism? Motherly love? Brotherhood of man? Success? Power? Good taste?

15. Is there any background information you need to make sense of the advertisement? How does context shape our understanding of the advertisement?

Adapted from Berger, Ads, Fads & Consumer Culture Rowman & Littlefield.

Breaking News

I just started a new journal, number 84, which I've ironically titled "Breaking News," because nothing newsworthy happens in my life...Only minor events from time to time...the only news is that my friends are beginning to suffer from various ailments of a serious nature...this one got cancer, that one was in a car accident, a third is suffering from early stages of Alzheimers, and so it goes. Old age is a shipwreck. But when does a person get old?

I am sending a book manuscript, Bali Tourism, off to my publisher and it will be out in a year or two. Things often move slowly with publishers, even though the book has been accepted.

A CURIOUS THING

It's a curious thing...I only write in my blog every couple of years, or so it seems...and yet I've kept a journal and written in it just about every day for the last fifty years. I had hoped to be able to send selections from one of my novels to the blog and have my blog run as something with new chapters every week, or something like that. But I don't know how to upload text so I just write a bit every once in a while. When I find out how to upload text, rather than retyping it, I'll turn my blog into a novel.

Return of Decoder Man. I've been busy writing books and chasing about the world
but now, with a new version of Blogger that I can use more easily, I intend to return
to the blogger wars.

I've been speculating on the irony of our political situation...that we elected a president
who we would be more telegenic and now, so it seems, millions of people can't stand
to look at him. The Republicans put in a bumbler but someone who they thought could
win and help destroy the Democrats and now it seems he's destroying the Republicans.
Of course a lot of people think he wasn't elected but "selected" by the Supreme Court.
And so we're deep in a hole in Irac and 43 got us into...and he's made a terrible mess
of the middle east.

I am a confirmed ironist. When things are going too well, be careful...because there's
a good chance that something will happen to change things around. Reinhold Niebhuhr
wrote a book about the irony of American politics. He was right. Things have changed
since 43 pranced around on the aircraft carrier under a sign "mission accomplished."

The Decoder Man returns...after a long absence. New decodings on the way.

 

NEW POSSIBILITIES

I'm trying to learn how to send material on my MS Word files
to my blog. If I can do that, I'll start publishing, in installments,
one of my academic murder mysteries.

In the course of my career as a mystery writer, I've killed more than a dozen professors...in varying ways. I hope to be able to share one of my
mysteries if I find out how to file material from word.

In the beginning was the word.

Arthur Asa Berger as Decoder Man 

Discovering LULU!

I just discovered LULU, an Internet publishing program that does books for free,
and since I had a few book-length manuscripts on hand, and no publisher were knocking down the doors to my house, I published them on LULU. When you know how to use LULU, it only takes twenty minutes or so to publish a book. Amazing. And it's free. You pay according to the number of pages and the amount of a royalty you want
for each book.

So, in just a few days, I published a memoir (of sorts) of mine, EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE and two mysteries: THE RASHOMON CASE (which deals with different ways of analyzing the film Rashomon) and TERMINAL PAPERS (which is about writing compositions).

You can get an ISBN number for $34.00 and then it will be listed on Amazon.com
and other Internet booksellers.

The problem with publishing books on LULU and competitors such as IUniverse
is that you don't have distribution and have to figure out ways to market your
books. But it costs around $500 to publish a book on IUniverse and Xlibris
and it's free to publish a book with LULU.

LULU has published something like 15,000 books...all available as
Print-on-Demand books. LULU represents a revolution in publishing...it seems
to be a completely automated system that enables you to publish a book, as
long as you have it on a file.

I made a collage to use in one of my books and believe I've posted it to my blog. I don't know how to write something in my blog and then upload an image. In essence, everything I do with this blog, except for what I write here, is a matter of chance and luck.

This is a collage I made recently 

This is what I looked like fifty years ago 

Decoder Man

For many years I was "The Secret Agent," a title given to me by George Gerbner, Dean of the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. In recent years, as I've become more interested in semiotics, I've switched to "Decoder Man"--but the two are quite similar for what I decode at things discovered or found interesting by my other persona, "The Secret Agent."

If I can ever figure out how to upload files from my word processor, I'll reveal some of the secrets I've found and codes I've decoded.

My Other Super-Hero Identity: Decoder Man 

Problems of the Creative Artist

I think I uploaded the cover of one of my academic mystery novels. What I'd
like to do next is figure out how to upload text that I've written in Word...
and perhaps offer a mystery one segment at a time. I'm exploring this matter
and will see what I learn.

Decoder Man